With >$1 million raised, Humble Bundle games go open source

The Humble Bundle began as a grand experiment, and ended with over $1 million …

It was a simple idea: take a collection of independent games, offer them with no DRM, and allow people to pay whatever they'd like. The result? 123,182 people have paid for the bundle so far, and the total raised is now an incredible $1,126,563.

That generosity will be rewarded. "As of 5/11/10, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra Overture pledge to go open source," the developers blogged. "We are preparing the sources right now and will be releasing them ASAP." The sale was a huge success, began many conversations, and it provided insight into the behavior of gamers. Here's a look at what comes next.

Much larger than expected

"It's still pretty surreal. Once it was launched, it was immediately clear that we were on to something," Jeffry Rosen, the cofounder of Wolfire Games, told Ars. Raising a million dollars was seen as possible, but it was certainly a best-case scenario. "At the end, people really, really wanted to support the bundle and push it to make the million dollar milestone—we started seeing donations as large as $3333.33 and $1337.00 come in at the last few hours," Rosen explained. "Reddit completely lit up: I would estimate redditors to be the single largest benefactor, by far."

A lot of people were talking about DRM and piracy, but fewer were talking about the actual games in the bundle. Did the games themselves—which are more than worth your time—get lost in the shuffle? "I think we introduced a huge number of gamers to the indie community, and I hope they like what they see," Rosen said. "All of our forums are extremely busy now with activity. With Lugaru, people are actually already contributing patches, now that it is open source, and improving it."

That's the bonus prize: the games that are now open source. You'll want to check back for the licenses—no one is going to get rich reselling modified games—but poking around the code and improving the experience or trying your hand at creating content is going to be a great thing for the independent gaming community.

"When I saw this flurry of positive contributions, it immediately reminded me of its mirror image—the rush to be the first cracker to crack each new DRM scheme... It makes me a little sad to see all this effort expended on games with DRM. Could it work the same way in reverse?" Rosen wrote on the blog. "When Aquaria, Gish, and Penumbra Overture open up, I hope the community will help build them up with the same vigor that crackers tear DRM down."

What did we learn?

Just as impressive as the money raised was the amount of information gained about the community that picked up the bundle. There was a blog post detailing the popularity of the bundle on Linux and Mac OS X systems—much higher than assumed. The piracy rate was also explored, and that launched a heated conversation in our comments about what those numbers mean.

Publishers complain about piracy, and gamers complain about DRM, but in this case something new and novel was attempted, and the end result was profits for the developers, a ton of publicity, and another lump of cash for two very deserving causes.

"We are still finishing up, but whether it's us or someone else—I guarantee you will see more of these. We've already gotten a number of requests to purchase the website's code," Rosen told Ars. "You can bet there are many others already in development whether it's from developers directly or from other people."

What's next now that the sale has reached its conclusion? You can still donate and receive the games, but Rosen is going to return to his passion. "I have not really slept properly in over a week, so it will be great to be able to relax and rejoin my brother, working on our game."

This kinda throws a wrench into the argument that DRM is needed to prevent piracy...

Stardock confirmed that many moons ago. They release all of their titles with no DRM. All you need to do is purchase a serial key to allow access to multiplayer and support/patches. They make great money too in a very niche hardcore 4X strategy market. As Stardock's founder put it, the pirates aren't your customers, those buying your games are. Why go out of your way to harm the consumer and provide incentive to not purchase your game?

I bought the bundle after reading about it on Ars. I didn't give a ton, as I hadn't planned on buying the games before (never heard of them). Only played one so far, and it's already been worth my money. I'll definitely be checking out these publishers in the future.

This kinda throws a wrench into the argument that DRM is needed to prevent piracy...

Technically no, this shows that piracy doesn't significantly (i.e. to an extent that would make unprofitable) affect the sales of good games. But I agree, it's really the same effect: DRM doesn't help your bottom line to any useful degree.

I'm a little surprised at the distribution of the money - only about 30% went to charity, and that was split pretty closely between Child's Play and the EFF. I was expecting more for charity, and more of a skew towards CP.

This kinda throws a wrench into the argument that DRM is needed to prevent piracy...

Technically no, this shows that piracy doesn't significantly (i.e. to an extent that would make unprofitable) affect the sales of good games. But I agree, it's really the same effect: DRM doesn't help your bottom line to any useful degree.

DRM can hinder it though. DRM has stopped me from pre-ordering PC games. I don't buy now till I find out what type of DRM, if any, is being implemented. In the case of Ubisoft I canceled a pre-order for Assassins Creed II once I found out about the always-on connection being required (that was my last pre-order). Ubi have now lost a customer for any PC product utilizing that DRM (and I refuse to buy the console versions as that still renders Ubi money, I won't support such an anti-consumer company). The real irony is that their mechanism has been cracked. The release groups actually thanked Ubi for providing them a challenge. So what have they gained? They angered consumers and didn't stop piracy at all. On top of that they paid a nice chunk of change for ineffective DRM.

I'm a little surprised at the distribution of the money - only about 30% went to charity, and that was split pretty closely between Child's Play and the EFF. I was expecting more for charity, and more of a skew towards CP.

They said the biggest contributions were from Reddit though, and I'm guessing most people there already knew (and had perhaps donated) to Child's Play and the EFF. I'm no Redditor, but that's was the case for me; I gave a bigger chunk to the devs as a result since they organized this and ran the website, blog, etc. And honestly if I could choose to have 30% of any other type purchase go to excellent charities, that'd be sweet.

It's a nice amount but would the $1 million really cover the development costs of all games combined? In other words, would a DRM free release REALLY bring in enough money for game studios to consider it? And let's not forget, this one got a lot of attention because it was so unique and I suspect a lot of people paid (so much) money because of the novelty. I seriously doubt people would pay 1337 dollar for a regular game or even for COD4. Or am I missing the point here?

It's a nice amount but would the $1 million really cover the development costs of all games combined? In other words, would a DRM free release REALLY bring in enough money for game studios to consider it? And let's not forget, this one got a lot of attention because it was so unique and I suspect a lot of people paid (so much) money because of the novelty. I seriously doubt people would pay 1337 dollar for a regular game or even for COD4. Or am I missing the point here?

The games in this bundle were developed on shoestring budgets. This event didn't have anywhere near the visibility of titles published by the likes of Activision, Microsoft, Ubi, or EA who all have multimillion dollar advertising budgets allotted. That visibility guarantees sales that indie developers will never achieve.

Quote:

According to Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock, (via the Sins of a Solar Empire forum) piracy is an issue, but he doesn't think it should be used as a scapegoat when a game doesn't sell. Wardwell states that there is a problem with the way that game developers currently look at the PC install base. "When you develop for a market, you don't go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base. That's what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they're developing for. But not PC game developers. PC game developers seem to focus more on the 'cool' factor. What game can they make that will get them glory with the game magazines and gaming websites and hard core gamers? These days, it seems like game developers want to be like rock stars more than businessmen," Wardell wrote.

Stardock has long made the case that DRM doesn't help sales, and they've backed up their claims with one successful title after the next with no DRM implementation. They are also the only source for digital distribution that includes the ability to revoke your license so that you can sell the games you no longer play.

It's a nice amount but would the $1 million really cover the development costs of all games combined? In other words, would a DRM free release REALLY bring in enough money for game studios to consider it? And let's not forget, this one got a lot of attention because it was so unique and I suspect a lot of people paid (so much) money because of the novelty. I seriously doubt people would pay 1337 dollar for a regular game or even for COD4. Or am I missing the point here?

These games weren't launched with the bundle; they've been sold a variety of different ways for a while now. No one needed to fund their own development with this deal, although the extra money is sure to be a nice boost for the NEXT game.

It's a nice amount but would the $1 million really cover the development costs of all games combined? In other words, would a DRM free release REALLY bring in enough money for game studios to consider it? And let's not forget, this one got a lot of attention because it was so unique and I suspect a lot of people paid (so much) money because of the novelty. I seriously doubt people would pay 1337 dollar for a regular game or even for COD4. Or am I missing the point here?

Was wondering the same thing. Sure, they made over <voice=Dr. Evil>ONE MILLION DOLLARS</voice>, but did they turn a profit?

It's a possible way for independent developers. Tarn Adams, the guy who writes Dwarf Fortress, made $15k last month with the release of the current version. All donations; the game is free to download.

It's a nice amount but would the $1 million really cover the development costs of all games combined? In other words, would a DRM free release REALLY bring in enough money for game studios to consider it? And let's not forget, this one got a lot of attention because it was so unique and I suspect a lot of people paid (so much) money because of the novelty. I seriously doubt people would pay 1337 dollar for a regular game or even for COD4. Or am I missing the point here?

All of these games were on sale individually before this bundle deal, and all probably were paid for already. This is an additional 1 million dollars in revenue that they wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Added $13 to the total. Not much, but it is better than the average WIn and Mac user. It comes just under the average Linux user. Who knew Linux guys and gals were so loaded?

of course the Linux peeps are loaded, they aren't getting over charged for software! that said, i paid $20 for the windows versions. I would have gotten the mac versions, but i've got a couple generation old mac mini with the intel gpu, and i wasn't sure it could handle games decently. found that out with Monkey Island sadly

so, i went with the win versions because i knew that computer, while aging, could handle the games.

I'm just glad they extended the sale. I was planning on dropping some cash on this but I don't get paid until Friday, and I'm not enough of a dick to download it for nothing.

If you think you can be disiplined enough to put in you cash after the fact I don't see anything stopping you from downloading now and paying when you can. Hell I even went and paid more in after they added the extra game.

MountainRob wrote:

I seriously doubt people would pay 1337 dollar for a regular game or even for COD4. Or am I missing the point here?

I believe you are. The point is people will pay for games on these terms and even leet amounts of money when they deem its a good enough cause.

We've already gotten a number of requests to purchase the website's code," Rosen told Ars.

Hopefully when they do they'll tweak the code so you can manually input the numbers in the custom split thing.It was fun to play with the sliders, until I actually tried to make my donation and couldn't get them to sit where I wanted.

i use linux (ubuntu) and donated $30 all to the developers (i see charities as useless). im glad to see that linux was the highest paying OS hopefully this shows developers that just because we use a free os doesn't mean that were cheap stakes so come on down and make awesome games for linux please!!!! .

Since I already paid $20 for World of Goo (awesome game) on Steam, I wasn't interested at first. But then I realized that I had the same trepidation about WoG that I do about the other games in the bundle. So I took the plunge. The developers/publishers deserve a nod, so I earmarked it for them.

I really hope other game studios take this concept and run with it. I'll certainly support them.

There is the beginning of a very interesting business model on display here - don't sell IP for a unit price, sell it for a collective price. Something along the lines of "here's episode 1 of a game. It's yours for whatever you feel like paying. If we get x total revenue from episode 1, we'll release episode 2." etc.

I don't know if it could work, but it would be an approach to solving the fundamental problem of IP sales - the units you're selling aren't scarce goods, but the creativity/talent/work to create them are.

This kinda throws a wrench into the argument that DRM is needed to prevent piracy...

Technically no, this shows that piracy doesn't significantly (i.e. to an extent that would make unprofitable) affect the sales of good games. But I agree, it's really the same effect: DRM doesn't help your bottom line to any useful degree.

I've been saying this for years: Stop wasting money trying to stop the pirates, it's a wasted effort. Serve your legitimate customers, and the money will come. Most people either don't have the awareness to pirate, or are willing to pay for the entertainment that they truly enjoy.

R2P2 wrote:

I'm a little surprised at the distribution of the money - only about 30% went to charity, and that was split pretty closely between Child's Play and the EFF. I was expecting more for charity, and more of a skew towards CP.

I was expecting that CP would be getting a larger portion, so I skewed my donation toward the devs and EFF.

Hey Ben:I would love for you guys to do an article on the outcomes of games going open source. For instance, iD software has for many years released the source to all of their 3D games (I wish they'd release the source to Keen). I know iD wasn't the first but they certainly made themselves popular with the OSS crowd by doing it. Many of the older games like Wolf3D, Doom and Quake have had a really interesting life in the hands of fan developers who have added all sorts of features to keep the games alive.

I believe iD's last source release was Q3:A and I don't know that I've seen much come out of it. What other developers have released source for games that have had any sort of active development since the release?

Thanks Mike and Ben for covering this sale (and subsequent developments), otherwise I wouldn't have known about it until it was almost over. Instead I happily got in on the first day and spammed the everlovin' crap out of it in all my usual haunts for a week. For some reason I've still got a strong case of the warm fuzzies about this whole thing, and not just for getting some fun games at a bargain price. So here are some things we can probably take from this:

1) Linux and Mac are seriously underserved when it comes to games. It seems like some bigger devs and publishers are already catching on to that with Steam and Blizzard stepping up for simultaneous Win/Mac releases and at least some exploratory Linux development. Lots of indie devs already had their finger on this pulse, either developing natively for those platforms or making sure their fare is cross-platform. From this sale, Linux and Mac users were more spendy than Windows users, giving money out of all proportion to their OS usage share. Perhaps the relative lack of games for their platforms is behind this willingness to pay more for what they can get. 2) More people would buy indie games if they had greater exposure. I know there have been other indie bundles and promotions, but it seems that this one has had the loudest noise surrounding it. 3) More people will buy your product if you skip the invasive DRM. Yes, some people will pirate it. But there will always be some people who pirate, and DRM that makes life tough for paying customers will only discourage them from being paying customers. Lots of people sought out cracked copies of Spore and other big games because they didn't want to deal with the DRM restrictions in the commercial versions. When pirates can offer a better product than yours at no cost and without hassle, you have to re-assess your business model. Lots of people think of Steam as DRM that's successfully been turned into a value-added service rather than a burden, so it's not like DRM can't work and be acceptable at the same time, but constant home-phoning, rootkits, and limited re-installs are not acceptable. It's gotten so bad that lack of DRM is a credible, marketable selling point. 4) Flexible pricing on digital goods can work extremely well. Several (perhaps not "lots") of musicians have already succeeded with this. 5) People love tying their purchases to charitable donations. Sure, I may have just spent some money on entertainment, but I felt a lot better knowing that a big chunk of my money was going to help kids and fund a bullwork of e-related civil liberties. This tactic ain't exactly new, though, but I think this sale is a good example. 6) Promising to release source code can help drive higher donations. There was a notable rush to push the total over a million dollars in the last days of the promotion, probably due in part to reports that this milestone would prompt source code releases for several of the games in the bundle. There are other benefits to this as well, since apparently Lugaru is getting patches that resolve long-standing issues after only a couple of hours from the source being published. Having the source available can also open up opportunities to port the game to different platforms (like ARM-based smartphones), giving you an even broader audience. (hope one of the patches for Lugaru lets me use my el-cheapo Logitech Precision game pad; I'm just not a WASD guy. Penumbra's control scheme is probably a lost cause without at least 1 analog stick for a mouse, though maybe I could use the Wiimote on Linux...).

Perhaps this is something other indie devs can benefit from. It'd be great to see more cross-platform games achieve this kind of success.

Especially with the increase of online availability, I think the best a company can do (besides dumping the entire thing as open source, including the art work files) is do what iD did.

Doom is open source, but the .WAD files are still restricted. So you can do whatever you want with the source code, but if you want to play the game you still need to get the .WAD files from iD (or use the shareware WAD).

This means iD doesn't have to worry about the engine, and people can port Doom to everything, but they can still get a revenue stream from their WAD file.

Now it wouldn't work for some games where the entire value is the game itself; the artwork is minimal (Dwarf Fortress, etc), but it can be a viable option that will allow the game to continue to be played.

After all, it would be neat if you could buy the data files for Grim Fandango and then get a source port to play ...

Anyone remember (back in the BBS days) when "shareware" was a "try before you buy" thing and not a "crippleware" thing?

i.e. "Back in the day" you could download software and use it, without restriction, under the TRUST that you would send the author payment if you wanted to keep the software.

That's kind of what I see here: people were willing to fund the developers whom they thought were providing quality software. It wasn't about the charity (though the charity did back up the claim that the developers were "good" people) but it was about people willing to pay for things that deserved payment.

DRM doesn't help, IMNSHO, it just makes people get annoyed with the distributor, and that includes crippleware, "must be online to use", and other copy protection schemes. The internet just made it easier for many of these DRM schemes to work.

Added $13 to the total. Not much, but it is better than the average WIn and Mac user. It comes just under the average Linux user. Who knew Linux guys and gals were so loaded?

of course the Linux peeps are loaded, they aren't getting over charged for software! that said, i paid $20 for the windows versions. I would have gotten the mac versions, but i've got a couple generation old mac mini with the intel gpu, and i wasn't sure it could handle games decently. found that out with Monkey Island sadly so, i went with the win versions because i knew that computer, while aging, could handle the games.

Check out the minimum requirements for the individual games: I know at least one of the games is targeted for G3 and later Macs. You can always go back and download the Mac versions, and most of them seem pretty undemanding.

So the games are open source now or soon will be, is there a centralized place to get mods/patches for the games or will the developers implement patches/features that they feel are the best and set up a place for user mods?

Anyone remember (back in the BBS days) when "shareware" was a "try before you buy" thing and not a "crippleware" thing? ...

Sure, I remember that. I think there are some companies that do the "crippleware" approach pretty well, like PopCap and Adobe. PopCap usually lets you play for an hour or 20% of a game... if you hit that limit, I think you probably liked the game, no? Adobe gives you 30 days... heck, you can learn an application and get paid for a project in that amount of time. These publishers have *given* you that limited use of their software. It doesn't bother me that they insist on payment for more.

(Okay, I admit I had serious issues with the activation/registration conking out on CS2, but CS3 was okay and CS5 seems good enough, too.)